Justeen Hyde for SAC 08, August 5, 2014

1. Justeen Hyde, PhD
Institute for Community Health
Harvard Medical School
If you don’t know where you are going,
how will you know when you get there?
Project Planning and Evaluation Workshop

2. Institute for Community Health
• Vision is to improve community health by uniting
academic research with real world practice
• Utilize a participatory research and evaluation
approach
– Partnership and collaboration
– Long-term commitment
– Co-learning
– Deep appreciation for diverse experiences,
practices, values, and resources

3. Institute for Community Health

4. Focus for Today
• Overview of Evaluation
– Purpose
– Basic steps
– Logic models and other visual depictions
Theory of Change
• Workshop your projects
– Problem to be addressed
– Underlying assumptions
– Visual depiction of your Theory of Change

5. What is Evaluation?
Evaluation is the systematic investigation of
merit, worth or significance of an object
In other words…
Addresses question of whether an initiative has
been worthwhile in terms of delivering what
was intended and expected?

6. What is Evaluation?
Can also…
– Inform future program planning and design
– Provide lessons learned
– Ensure transparency and accountability
– Provide broader lessons learned about good
practice

7. Typical Participatory Evaluation Cycle
1. Engage
Stakeholders
2. Describe the
program or
purpose
3. Focus your
evaluation
4. Collect data
5. Analyze and
interpret data
6. Share findings
and ensure their
use

8. First step
• What is the problem you are trying to
address?
– What are your assumptions about why this
problem exists?
– What are these assumptions based on?
– Whose perspectives are included/excluded?

9. The Importance of Assumptions

10. It’s a matter of reliability and
validity

11. Access to and Retention in HIV Care in
Metro Boston
• New HIV infections in the U.S. have
remained stable for the last decade
– Estimated 20% of people living with HIV are
unaware of their status
– Estimated 20-30% of people with HIV are not
engaged in HIV care
• HIV is increasingly viewed as a chronic
disease
– Shift in thinking about appropriate
interventions for persons living with HIV

12. HIV as a Chronic Disease
• Shift from preparing people to die to
helping people manage chronic disease
• Most people living with HIV in the U.S. are
connected to care and on medication
• Focus on the 20-30% who are not
managing their disease
– What are the assumptions about this group?

13. Possible Explanations
• Limited access to quality care
• Shame/stigma associated with HIV
infection
• Problems with self management
associated with substance use or mental
illness
• Fatalism
• Others?

14. Importance of Assumptions
Limited access
to quality care
Substance
abuse and
mental health

15. Project LEAP Assumptions
• Poverty is a primary determinant of health
– HIV is one of many issues
– Sense of overwhelm
– Access to quality physical and mental health
care
• Social isolation associated with having a
disease that is still highly stigmatized
– Affects traditional sources of support
– Suppression of identity to remain in
community

16. What is the Problem?
• Succinct statement about the problem
your group is addressing
• What are your assumptions about why this
problem exists?
• What informs these assumptions?
• What perspectives may be missing?

18. Engage Stakeholders
National
Government
Representatives
from NGOs
Journalists/
Media Producers
Service
Providers
Residents

19. Describe
Program/Service/Intervention

20. Goals and Objectives
What is the Goal of the program, service,
intervention, policy?
– A broad statement that describes what you
hope to achieve through your efforts
How will you achieve your goal? (Objectives)
–Specific, measurable steps that can be taken to
meet the goal

21. Be SMART
• State exactly what you want to accomplish
• Who, What, Where, WhySpecific
• How will you assess whether or not you have
met your goal?Measurable
• Describe your goals using action verbs and
outline the steps you will take to achieve your
goals
Action-Oriented
• Are the goals and objectives aligned with the
expectations of key stakeholders?
Specific
• Establish a timeframe for when you will
achieve goals and objectivesTime-bound
Relevant

22. Examples of Goals
Poor
• To be healthier
• To change the
world and make it
a better place
SMARTer
• To improve my health by exercising
at least 3 times per week and
eating fruits and vegetables at
every meal
• To cultivate international leaders
who are committed to social
change by creating an environment
open to critical dialogue, providing
hands on experience engaging in
social problems, and building
capacity to use different forms of
media to communicate with
others.

23. Your group’s goals
• Write a succinct statement describing the
goal of your project
– Problem you seek to address
– Target audience
– Primary strategy or approach

24. Intended Effects
What is our
goal?
How will we
achieve it?
What do we
expect to
happen as
a result?

25. Outcomes
• Specific changes in behavior, knowledge,
skills, status and level of functioning
resulting from activities
– Short-term outcomes – immediate changes,
often knowledge and attitudes
– Intermediate outcomes – several months to a
few years, often skills, beliefs, behavior
change
– Long-term outcomes – lasting changes that
may take several years to realize

26. Logic Models
• Graphic depictions of the relationship
between activities and intended effects
– Inputs
– Outputs
– Outcomes
– Impact

29. Workshop
Develop a logic model for your project
• Inputs
• Activities
• Outputs
• Outcomes
– Short-term outcomes
– Intermediate (if appropriate)
– Long-term impact

30. “If you think you’re too
small to be effective, you
have never been in bed
with a mosquito.”
Bette Reese